


Ya'aburnee

by PunishedPyotr



Series: Only Ones and Zeros [9]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M, Mood Swings, angsty fluff, autopsy report, reupload, you have no idea how hard it was not to make Ace Attorney jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 23:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13751553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunishedPyotr/pseuds/PunishedPyotr
Summary: The matter of Psycho Mantis' sudden, needless death, and Liquid Snake's reaction to it, is finally confronted.





	Ya'aburnee

**Author's Note:**

> _Eurydice_ is NOT in continuity with this series, okay

Mantis never comes back to the Shadow Moses VR to find Liquid hanging out in the commander’s room. It just doesn’t happen. Yes, Liquid will follow Mantis in there and he’ll _stay_ in there, even if Mantis steps out for a few minutes — but with Mantis gone? He only ever spends five minutes at a time in there, just occasionally grabbing a book or passing through. He only ever goes in there if he _needs_ to.

_Why_ he’s almost avoiding the place is obvious, although it makes Mantis uncomfortable to think about it. It’s where he died, after all. Mantis doesn’t hold that against the room. Liquid does.

He comes back to the Shadow Moses VR one day to a cold reception, and when he mentally reaches out for Liquid, he finds him spacing out in the commander’s room, curled up under the desk and feeling very depressed.

Mantis walks in. Liquid notices his presence, of course, but Mantis can’t think of what he should say here and there’s only silence for almost a full minute.

“Why haven’t we talked?” Liquid says abruptly.

“Eli…”

“You… Mantis, you _know_ how I reacted to your death. Why haven’t you brought it up yet? I’m tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop…”

Liquid hasn’t moved from under the desk, hasn’t even sat up or uncurled, so Mantis moves the chair out of the way and sits on the floor where it once stood. Liquid has his back turned to him.

“I did not really think we needed to talk about it,” Mantis says.

Liquid’s silent for a long time.

He doesn’t actually remember very well how he reacted to Mantis’ death - he remembers Mantis _dying_ , all too vividly, but what he did immediately after that, well… it’s mostly just a blur up until Wolf captured Snake and he had to get back to business. But Liquid recalls, vaguely, that Snake had called him on the Codec and he recalls how much he struggled to keep his voice neutral, and he thinks he recalls a little of what he said — and that it wasn’t very nice.

And he remembers feeling betrayed, mostly because that feeling of betrayal had never abated, not until he came face-to-face with Mantis in the simulation and he found himself to be, despite the feeling of betrayal, more overjoyed than he’d ever been in his life or previous death.

But he’d tried to hate Mantis for a long time. And he feels it doesn’t matter that seeing him again caused him to admit to himself that he never _could_ hate him, that he _loves_ him; the fact of the matter still stands ugly before him.

“Eli,” Mantis says hesitantly, “if you yourself do not have a good memory of how you felt right after I died, then why would I know how exactly you reacted?”

“Because I know you heard the recording of what I said to Snake when he called me after he killed you.”

Mantis doesn’t say anything for a moment. He’s been trying not to make a habit out of reading Liquid’s memories (Liquid hasn’t been much of a fan of that ever since the whole POW thing), but looking in them now, well… he doesn’t technically _know_ that for sure, but he’s not about to waver from that assumption.

Mantis isn’t going to lie to him. It’s true.

“Yes,” he says quietly.

“…what did I say?”

“Nothing. It does not matter.”

“Mantis…”

“I thought it was only an in-character comment,” Mantis says, and it is a half-life but he doesn’t want to be having this conversation.

“No you didn’t. Tell me what I said, Mantis.”

Mantis takes a deep breath. “You… called me pathetic. Said I was born with all the right tools, but never knew how to use them.”

Again, a long silence.

Liquid is thinking of how back then he must have _meant_ it.

“I’m sorry,” he says at length.

“You were hurt.”

“That doesn’t excuse—“

Mantis puts a hand on Liquid’s shoulder, and he doesn’t react to it. “You were hurt and you had more important things to think about. You had to bury your grief.”

“…what made you come to that conclusion?”

Mantis hesitates before answering. He really doesn’t want to have this conversation. “I have discussed this before...”

Liquid finally sits up and turns around, swatting Mantis’ hand away from him and glowering. “It’s that fucking AI again,” he spits, “you discussed this with _him_. That’s why you heard the recording, _he_ told you.”

“Eli,” Mantis starts, but shakes his head. It’s just as well. Maybe Liquid can be distracted enough by his jealousy that he’ll drop the other subject entirely.

Unfortunately it won’t quite work that way. “Why were you two even discussing it?!”

“He brought it up,” Mantis answers helplessly, “he was confused. He thought what you told Snake was inconsistent with the fact that you are in love with me, and he was asking for clarification.”

“What would it even matter to him!”

“Well… his purpose, ancillary to acting as you, was to analyze your personality, so—-“

“And?! What does he know!!”

“Eli,” Mantis says, putting his hands on his shoulders, “calm down.”

Liquid just growls.

“I know my death came as a shock, and I know you could not afford to be distracted. There is no point in me taking offense at however coldly you reacted.”

“The AI wouldn’t know how I felt. No one knows how I felt about it… actually, I suppose Ocelot would, but if the AI was saying I had to _bury my grief_ then clearly Ocelot never shared any of that with the Patriots while I wasn’t looking.”

Mantis shrugs. “He did say that he had no records of your emotions.”

“How did— how did _you_ react when you heard _I_ died?”

“I was upset,” Mantis says, hoping the topic of conversation will wander away too far to really talk about this again, “but I wasn’t surprised.”

“And?”

“And I only wanted to see you again… hence, when I found the VR…”

Liquid’s face twists sourly, and again he waves Mantis’ touch off and turns around, slumping against the footwell of the desk. “And how did you react when you found out how I reacted to your death? When you heard the recording?”

“I… Eli…”

“I felt… betrayed, Mantis. Unspeakably betrayed. To just let yourself be killed like that, when I still needed you - you couldn’t have hurt me worse if you had literally stabbed me in the back, Mantis. That was tantamount to suicide, Mantis.”

“I’m… sorry, Eli.”

“I still needed you.”

“I know.”

“And you were the one person - the _one person_ \- whom I thought would make it out of that whole mess alive no matter _what_ happened. When Snake started shooting at you, I- well— up until then you’d _always_ retreated whenever you were being fired upon, ever since you lost the ability to just _block_ the bullets, you never actually stuck around for it… I was _expecting_ you to retreat.”

“You ordered me to retreat,” Mantis says quietly.

“I _begged_. You ignored me.”

Mantis turns his head away. Even though Liquid’s got his back turned to him again, he still doesn’t dare to look at him anymore. “I know.”

“I don’t… understand it, Mantis. I don’t understand you.”

“Eli,” Mantis tries, still not looking at him, “that does not matter anymore. We reunited, even in death - so why should the fact that we _are_ dead be relevant? We’re together again.”

“Because I hated you for four years!!” Liquid shouts, whipping around to face Mantis again and grabbing him by the upper arms, shaking him a little. “You _betrayed_ me, Mantis, you _left me behind_ and I couldn’t just _forgive_ that — I _hated_ you—-“

“You didn’t hate me. You only wanted to hate me,” Mantis says, “because it seemed easier than mourning. It seemed like it would hurt less. …and you did not want to move on. You didn’t want to leave me behind, even though I had done that to you.”

Liquid licks his lips, once, eyes wide. “And what makes you say that?”

“I know you.” He cups Liquid’s face in his hands, and Liquid’s arms fall away as he stares at Mantis in absolute stillness. “You love me. You always have.”

“You… you left me,” Liquid whispers, his mouth trembling. He’s realizing just now that he doesn’t have a crying subroutine, and although tears well in his eyes he can’t really shed them anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Mantis says again, pulling him close and resting his chin on the top of his head.

They sit like that for a while, with Liquid almost shivering against Mantis’ chest, and Mantis holding him, running his fingers through his hair. From when he ‘came to’ after dying all the way until he found out for sure what had happened to Liquid, Mantis had hoped against hope that Liquid had somehow survived or even succeeded… well, maybe not succeeded, if the remaining members of FOXHOUND had managed to pull off their rebellion then Mantis’ and Octopus’ bodies would have been buried on Shadow Moses when the spring thaw finally hit. So he knew the revolution had been a failure. But Mantis had hoped that Liquid had somehow _escaped_.

Looking back on that, Mantis isn’t sure why he ever thought that was even a possibility. In the times in their lives when they had been separated, nothing but misfortune had ever come upon Liquid. And with Mantis _dead_ , and Liquid suffering because of that… Mantis realizes now that with him dead, Liquid wouldn’t have survived the rest of the year. He got extra reckless without Mantis, extra manic, but even if carelessness hadn’t taken him then he would have eventually attempted suicide. There was nothing Mantis could do about that.

“Why didn’t you retreat?” Liquid asks, because it’s a burning question and Mantis can actually answer it now, if only he can figure out _how_ to answer.

Mantis shakes his head again. “Somehow, it seemed pointless to do so.”

Liquid swallows hard before speaking. “Ocelot told me they performed an autopsy - he told me about the results,” he says.

“I know, I remember you thinking about it. Snake infected me with FOXDIE when he took off my mask.”

“That… didn’t have to-“

“I was already injured by that point.”

“Not too severely,” Liquid mutters, “I went to see your body after it… I…”

He went to see the body but all he had done was scream in an empty room, and cry, and curse, and tell himself there was no use screaming and crying and cursing because Mantis had abandoned him and had probably never cared about him in the first place.

“Anyway, I know you couldn’t block bullets anymore but you could still dissipate most of the force behind them. I saw your wounds, they were fairly shallow… if you hadn’t let Snake take off your mask, you could have recovered, I think…”

“I am not as durable as you, Eli. And the medical facilities on Shadow Moses were fairly limited.”

“But it would have been better to try, wouldn’t it have?”

“It just… it seemed pointless, Eli. Futile. I could not shake the feeling.”

Neither of them says anything for a long while, and then Mantis says, “I will be back soon.”

“What? Are those bastards calling you again?”

“No, but I need to go check something and I cannot do it from here.”

Liquid whines. “Stay with me,” he pleads.

Mantis does. He almost can’t help it. He doesn’t like seeing Liquid upset, even less when he’s upset because of _him_. But he does take Liquid out of the commander’s room, resettling with him in the quarters they once shared, all the way across the base and far enough away that Liquid stops thinking about the way Mantis had looked lying dead on the floor of the commander’s room.

So they lie on the bed for a while, not talking, Liquid’s arms around Mantis holding him as close as possible, like he’s afraid Mantis will suddenly disappear if Liquid lets go of him, and Mantis with an arm lazily hooked over Liquid’s shoulder, threading his fingers through his hair.

Maybe it is better that Liquid tried to convince himself that he hated Mantis. Maybe their reunion would have gone much differently if Liquid had been able to accept Mantis’ death and move past it, as opposed to obsessing over his so-called betrayal…

And, at least, all his despair and bitterness had evaporated the moment he found himself at Shadow Moses again, leaning his head against Mantis’ shoulder like all was right in the world.

“They are calling me now,” Mantis says eventually.

“Oh…” Liquid knows it’d be stupid to try and stop him from leaving, but he slips back into his earlier depression anyway. “Come back soon.”

“I will. As soon as I can.”

He lets go of Mantis, and Mantis disappears.

* * *

It’s actually not very long until Mantis comes back, a few hours at the most — he wasn’t called for anything important and it’s gotten to the point where his captors are tired of Mantis verbally abusing them and don’t argue against him announcing he’s going “back to sleep”, although on the way back he _did_ figure that since he was passing through the network anyway, he might as well do that thing…

Seconds after Mantis reappears, Liquid comes sprinting down the hallway, slides into the room Mantis is in, and practically tackles him. They end up on the floor.

_I have spent much longer periods of time away from you before_ , Mantis thinks dryly as Liquid takes off his mask without permission and kisses his face repeatedly, insistently. _Recently, too._

_It just seemed like a really horrible conversation to have right before you leave_ , Liquid replies, sucking on Mantis’ lower lip.

Liquid’s been lied to too often for him to put any stock in words, and tends so hard towards mood swings and self-doubt that he doesn’t trust his own emotions, either. In his mind, the only way to _prove_ , both to Mantis and to himself, that he was _wrong_ to hate him and that he really didn’t hate him at all, is by getting physical about it.

_Eli, you don’t have to_ , Mantis thinks as Liquid works his tongue into his mouth, and he knows it’s kind of pointless. _There is no need for you to prove yourself._

“Mmm.” Liquid always needs to prove himself.

Mantis lets him do as he likes for a while (marginally grateful that Liquid no longer quite has the biological impetus to just hump Mantis into the floor) and when Liquid has moved on, kissing Mantis’ neck instead of his mouth and running his hands over Mantis’ ribs instead of clutching Mantis’ hands with interlaced fingers, Mantis reformats the data he’d uncovered into something ‘tangible’, a few sheets of paper.

“Eli,” he says, “I thought you might want to see this.”

“Hm?”

Liquid sits up, still straddling Mantis, although he’s careful not to put his full weight on him. Mantis hands him the papers.

“What’s this?”

“My autopsy report. It seems Ocelot omitted a few details when he told you about it.”

Liquid flips through the report, and goes pale.

“Internal hemorrhaging?”

Mantis nods. “And enough blood in my body cavity that it was likely enough the first shot that did it.”

Liquid stares blankly at the page for a while, then says, “we didn’t have any way to treat that on Shadow Moses.”

“I know.” He closes his eyes, tilts his head back. “I would have been dead within half an hour anyway, Eli. It was already too late for me by the point when I normally would have retreated.”

“That does explain why you felt it was futile…”

“Mm.”

“You read your own future for once.”

Mantis opens his eyes. That hadn’t occurred to him. “I suppose I did,” he says.

“And… and it means you didn’t abandon me.”

“Eli…”

“You were taken away from me, there wasn’t anything either one of us could do about that. _Snake_ took you away from me.”

“…”

He leans forward and kisses Mantis’ mouth again, briefly, crushing the autopsy report in his hand. “I’m going to kill him,” he whispers against his lips.

Because _that’s_ worked out so well in the past.

“I would honestly love to see you figure out how to do it,” Mantis replies.


End file.
